The present invention involves a computer management system for monitoring and assisting in the operation of a manufacturing facility.
In monitoring process operations during the running of a manufacturing facility, it has been common to log the readings of all of the sensors at various stages of the process for keeping track of information regarding the operation of the manufacturing process. These sensors have traditionally all been logged at set time intervals or on a substantially continuous basis. Such information has been recorded either on a computer memory storage member, such as on a magnetic tape or in a hard disk drive, or in hard copy form through printers or a set of graphic plotters.
Such information then is subsequently analyzed by the operator by obtaining and reviewing the hard copy printout of all of the readings from all the sensors. This process has been both complex and burdensome to the operator and necessitates the use of an operator that is reasonably skilled in the operation of the manufacturing facility as well as in the analysis of the technical data and the operation of computers.
As a result, most engineers during the operation of the manufacturing facility will spend time extracting data from various strip charts, log sheets, and quality control reports. After the data is assembled, it is analyzed by the engineer either on a hand calculator or entered into a personal computer for processing on an electronic spread sheet. The data needs to be entered by hand which is a time consuming and inefficient task.